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Thursday, March 7, 2013

Cupcakes for a Cure or Watch My Daughter Run

Shamrock Shake Cupcake

Life isn’t always about
cupcakes-you know those happy free days where calories don’t matter, the sun is
always shining, a rainbow is overhead and a gentle breeze helps the trees make
that beautiful rustling sound. And probably the tulips are blooming and there‘s
a cute little puppy at your feet. No, on some days we need to keep track. We
need to take stock of what we have. We need to take stock of what we can give
and we need to be grateful.

Today I’m an older mother
helping my daughter raise money for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. I say older
because she is no longer a girl scout and I am no longer a young mom helping
her sell cookies. My daughter is running a half marathon at the end of April to
raise money to save lives and find a cure to conquer blood cancer. Every 4
minutes someone is diagnosed with blood cancer. Every 10 minutes someone dies. And
lest we forget, leukemia is still the number 1 disease killer of children.

Many of you may know I
have twins.

Alex and Zoe

I believe they have been healthy and happy most days of their 22
years. When my son was 12 I took him to the doctor after he kept waking up
nights in pain because his leg was hurting him. I called the pediatrician
several times who always said, “Growing pains”. After he’d been through this too many nights to count I finally took him in to be checked. The doctor
immediately sent us down to Children’s Hospital in Denver where they did either a CAT scan or an
MRI. I can’t remember. I was freaking out and trying to stay calm at the same
time.

Turns out he had a tumor
that was most likely benign but we wouldn’t know for sure until surgery was
done. It took a few months for the surgery to be scheduled and I remember
thinking I hope this doctor is right. It became my mantra. For days. For
months. Well, he was right and it turned out to be an osteoid osteoma in his
lower left tibia. It must have hurt a lot as it was not so quietly growing. I
remember asking this wonderful, lanky, tall, handsome, pediatric orthopaedic
oncologist who also was a rodeo rider of some kind, what caused this. He looked
at me and said one word, “Luck.” He must have noticed the quizzical look on my
face and replied that it was luck because otherwise it would be cancer and it
wasn’t. That has stuck with me all these years. My son was one of the lucky
ones and so were we.

Not every one is so lucky.
My grandmother died when I was, I think 9. She was 58… I think. (I should know
this…) She died in 6 weeks. From leukemia. They didn’t know then what they do
now. They still need to know a lot more. And so it is that my daughter runs.

I am proud of her. She
graduated college less than a year ago and she’s trying to make her place in
the world. She’s diving right in and is notfreaked
out about the money the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society told her she needs to raise
to be able to run. She is training like crazy and gets to hopefully run in WashingtonDC
at the end of April in a Nike women’s race.

Her 2nd Half Marathon less than 2 months after emergency surgery.

Nike sponsors the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society.
78% of the money raised goes to funding program services and finding a cure. Just
22% is used for management and fundraising. In its 10 years of sponsorship Nike
has helped raise over 1.3 billion dollars and has had over half a million
runners run. This year my daughter hopes to be one of them. The society
receives no federal funding. And so my daughter runs.

Yes, I am asking you for a
donation. You can give a dollar. You can give five. You can give as much as you
want. No amount is too little. No amount is too much. Shoot, if you bought
these cupcakes they’d be $3 apiece. Think of this as a bake sale for leukemia. Just
like a Team in Training learns to be a team and support each other, we need to
be a team and support this cause. Check her web page out. Give. And watch my
daughter run. She is one of the lucky ones. Because she can run. And run. And run.

I’m proud of her.

You can even eat cupcakes with beer!

And back to cupcakes.
Today is bonus day. Two for the price of one. She chose a Shamrock Shake
cupcake, I think for luck and because she loves mint.

I chose chocolate
because, well, it’s chocolate. Mine is not a traditional cupcake. I found it at
this way cool site. It is more like a chocolate chip cookie crust with a gooey
chocolate chip filling. I decided to gild the lily and top it with a delectable
chocolate chip cookie flavored frosting. But you could leave as is or sprinkle with powdered sugar.

We chose purple cupcake liners because
the Team in Training color is purple. Remember, eat a lot of cupcakes. You may
have to take up running to work the calories off.

So glad that we could help, Zoe. Leukemia is a cause to run for. And Abbe, even though I can't eat cupcakes anymore{gluten intolerant] I will find away to make yours [so gorgeous] with my icky flour.Love, Mom

Zoe is doing a good thing. Congrats to her - she's a winner in life. And these cupcakes would be a winner in anyone's life, too. Both of them look awfully good. But I think I'll select the chocolate one. (OK, who am I fooling? I'll have one of each!). Good post - thanks.

Dearest Mom, I am so happy you learned to comment. From now on if anyone needs help with learning how to comment, please contact Libby B! And I am sorry for the icky flour but I am glad you are getting healthy!

And Mr. KR! Believe it or not Zoe looks for your comments on all my blogs so I am so happy you made this one. She is a winner in life and I believe she can do this, too! And go for the chocolate! That gets my vote.

That is so great that your daughter is running for such a great cause! I have no idea why we haven't yet begun to find cures for cancer. We think we are so smart and yet no revolutionary medical advances have been made in decades. Think about how the polio vaccine or tetanus vaccine was created all those years ago with probably less than half the technology we have now.

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